hirvinen comments on Do Fandoms Need Awfulness? - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 May 2009 06:03AM

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Comment author: HughRistik 28 May 2009 06:43:14PM 4 points [-]

I think you are on to something. When you think about it, humans are different enough that it's hard to create a work that everyone thinks is great. You might be able to create a work that nobody profoundly dislikes, but such a work is likely to be so bland, watered-down, and lacking in risks that nobody is profoundly thrilled with it, either. Creating a work that resonates with the worldview and experience of a certain group to a high magnitude can make it inaccessible or laughable to other groups of people with different values.

There may be a "Conversation of Fandom" of some sort going on: for every enthusiastic fan you produce with a work, you must also produce someone who hates it.

Contra Bond, it's not badness that produce fandom. Rather, elements with a high variance of appeal produce both fans in some groups of people, and badness from the perspective of other groups of people. These groups can even overlap, in the case of So Bad It's Good.

Comment author: hirvinen 28 May 2009 07:22:07PM *  1 point [-]

for every enthusiastic fan you produce with a work, you must also produce someone who hates it.

Kathy Sierra arguing along those lines, with emphasis on software expanding on Scott Adams on the subject. Sounds plausible.

ETA: I mean, useful as a general heuristic when thinking about whether something should be done or not for a product. Of course especially in software some things that gain undying love can be added in a fashion that does not distract those who don't want it.